


Land of the Lotus Eaters

by Fox_In_A_Box



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Bittersweet Ending, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, One Shot, Overall Spooky Atmosphere, Season/Series 03, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-15 00:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_In_A_Box/pseuds/Fox_In_A_Box
Summary: After discovering his former best-friend-turned-enemy is still alive and well after their last confrontation at the pier, Ed Nygma sets out to find him and execute his second revenge. Breaking into the gardens of the Van Dahl Mansion in the dead of night, he’s ready to settle the score once and for all. Except the Oswald he finds waiting for him is somewhat different from the man he used to know. In retrospect, he might not be human at all…





	Land of the Lotus Eaters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anonamika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonamika/gifts).

> This is a little something I wrote for a Halloween exchange with the amazing Anonamika, who not only was kind enough to provide a couple of prompts when I said I wanted to write something spoopy, but also came up with the idea of having an exchange in the first place (we ended up working on basically the same concept but hey, that's part of the fun!).  
The prompt I chose was: "Ivy saves Oswald after he's shot by Ed and brings him back to life with one of her potions. Except Oswald comes back...different."  
Hope you enjoy!

The gardens are different from the last time he has seen them.

When he had gathered up his scant possessions and left Van Dahl manor to go chase his fortune as Gotham's most brilliant criminal mind, finally cutting off the last thread binding him to painful memories of shattered friendships and betrayal, the harsh winter had already taken its toll on them. Ancient trees extending their naked branches towards the sky, rotting leaves no one had bothered to sweep blocking the pathways, frost and ice claiming the flowerbeds left unattended ever since the mayor's mysterious disappearance. Everything spoke of terrible fate met by its owner. _Poetic_, Ed remembers thinking as he allowed himself one last lingering look before getting in the cab.

Now, they appear to have been brought back to their old glory. More than that, every plant, bush or flower Ed encounters on his path seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact that spring is still a long way off. With no regard for seasonal changes, every plant is already in full bloom. In broad daylight it would make for a stunning picture, he supposes. In the shadows cast by a pale full moon, however, the vegetation all around him is shrouded in a bizarre atmosphere. Ominous, even.

A strange sort of unease creeps over him, growing more tangible with each step he takes, to the point that not even the comforting weight of the loaded gun tucked inside the inner pocket of his coat is much of a reassurance anymore. It crawls under his clothes, under his skin as he realises that he's sweating, in spite of the wintry breeze blowing through the leaves. More than once he catches a quick glimpse of something moving out of the corner of his eye, only to be met with nothing but coiling vines the moment he turns around to face it. Ed tries to shake off the impression, huffing at how he seems to have grown so impressionable all of a sudden.

The rational part of his brain is kind enough to remind him that plants are living creatures too, and that science has yet to demonstrate whether they can see, or perceive the world around them in some shape or form. As ridiculous as the idea of the plants in Oswald's garden spying on his progress to alert their master is, he moves forwards with caution along the narrow path. He opts for walking on the grass rather than letting the heels of his shoes clack loudly against the gravel, careful to make as little noise as possible. No use in being reckless; garden ghosts and sentient trees might not exist outside of the suggestible minds of irrational people, but Oswald Cobblepot is real indeed and Ed has every reason to suspect he won't be too happy to see him.

The unsettling feeling of being followed persists long after he makes a full circle around the house, pondering about the best way to break-in unnoticed. And it might be more than his overactive imagination playing tricks on him, because soon enough he's able to spot a human figure standing by one of the bushes that line the gravel path.

Adrenaline shoots through his veins, his muscles reacting on pure instinct as he reaches for his weapon, with his fingers pausing around the handle, ready to draw at the first hint of a threat. A threat that never comes. Instead, a somewhat familiar voice reaches his ears. Ed is astonished to realise that it might very well be the very fist sound he has heard since stepping through the iron gates.

"He knew you'd come alone," after some squinting in the half-darkness, he's able to recognise the young woman who was standing by Oswald during their last confrontation at the safe house. "I said it would be a stupid thing to do, especially for someone who claims to be the smartest man in Gotham. Turns out he was right."

Ed's mouth sets into a thin line. The implication that Oswald knows him well enough to anticipate his moves hurts his ego, the rage that had been momentarily subdued by the discomfort of wandering alone around the gardens in the middle of the night flaring up once again, blood boiling in his veins. "Where is he?"

Ed observes her as she picks up a plastic watering can, then moves to approach a nearby pot riddled with exotic flowers. She takes her time before answering. "He's waiting for you by the pond. He said that you'd probably remember the way."

He does. The unwanted images of the many pleasant evenings spent sitting together under the pavilion overlooking the decorative pond, drinking and laughing at the ineptitude of their enemies and underlings, resurface with unexpected intensity. So vivid that for a brief moment he's powerless against the memory of the warm smiles that used to grace Oswald's face when he looked back at him, then. The only way he can banish it is by forcing himself to picture Isabella's disfigured face instead. Her cold, dead body lying on the metal slab in the coroner's office. Only then does Oswald's soft look of admiration twist into a mocking grin he's dead set on wiping away from his face once and for all.

Ed casts a glance in the woman's direction only to find her still busy tending to her flowerpot. She starts to hum a little tune under her breath as she sets about to watering them one by one. Ed takes it as his cue to leave.

"He was dead when I found him, you know."

Ed stops on his tracks but doesn't reply. The lack of response doesn't faze her. She keeps talking without being prompted, more musing out loud to herself than addressing him directly. "No heartbeat. He wasn't even breathing. I had to get creative. It was a concoction I had never tried before...to be honest, I'm not even sure it worked."

"Seems like it worked just fine to me," Ed says, recalling the vicious violence with which Oswald had fought his way out of the Court of Owls' clutches. Not so different from the feared kingpin who used to snap at the slightest hint of insubordination from his men.

"Maybe," the young woman concedes. "I'm curious, though, was he always like that?"

A small frown grows on Ed’s face as he tries to make sense of the question he has been posed. He knows he should get going; the longer he spends her company, the more time Oswald will have to prepare for his arrival. If he really was expecting him, chances are he already has a few aces up his sleeve. But curiosity has always been Ed's loyal companion, his greatest strength as well as his most crippling weakness.

"What do you mean?" He asks.

"Ever since he woke up he's been kind of...how can I say it, weird?" She pauses, trying to collect her thoughts. "He spends most of his days in his old room, door closed and curtains drawn. Before you ask me what he does all day locked up in there, let me tell you that I have absolutely no idea. He only comes out in the evening, and even then he just walks around the garden. I mean, I don't mind other people getting interested in my plants, but...Now that I think about it, I have never seen him eat anything either. Then again, before I met him I used to hear all kinds of rumours - like he only eats raw fish, or something. Makes total sense that he wouldn't want to do that in public."

It doesn't take the entirety of Ed's superior intellect to tell that it sounds nothing like the Oswald he knows. Or used to, anyway. "I can't say it's an accurate description."

"Really?" She says, coming off entirely too surprised to be just faking disbelief for the sake of a cheap scare at his expenses. "That's interesting."

"Thanks for the chat but I really have to go now," Ed cuts her off before she can distract him further. "It's personal, I'm sure you understand."

"Yes, he told me that too."

This time, Ed doesn't bother with an answer.

The click of the gun being cocked is almost deafening in the quiet surrounding the pond.

Oswald doesn't move. He gives no sign of having even noticed Ed's presence behind him. Only when he speaks can Ed be sure that he has indeed heard him approaching. "Oh, please! I thought we were past that."

Even if Oswald has his back back turned to him, Ed can picture all too well the sneer tugging at the corner of his lips. The tone of his voice does nothing to conceal his smug air of superiority, if anything he seems to be flaunting it. The not-so-subtle contempt dripping from each of his words has Ed shaking with barely restrained fury. He takes one, two steps forwards. The business end of his weapon presses right between Oswald's shoulder blades.

"Turn around," he commands.

Again, Oswald ignores him. Out of spite, he suspects. He'd rather die than obey an order coming from the one man he despises the most. And to think that he was claiming to love him, not too long ago. Yet another proof that he has no idea of what love truly is.

Restless, Ed's fingers clench and unclench around the handle of the gun. His index grazes the trigger, already savouring the ring of the ear-piercing bang a second before the grass is tinted deep red with Oswald's blood and -- no. No, it would be too easy. Too quick. Oswald doesn't deserve a quick demise.

If the redhead is right and she has managed to somehow bring a dead Penguin back to life with one of her potions, his second death won't be nearly as painless as the first one. Ed will take his time. His revenge will be slow, drawn-out and oh so sweet. He won't be satisfied until the former King of Gotham is down on his knees, blue eyes full of tears, begging him to spare his life. Or better yet, begging the Riddler to put him out of his misery, his pride forgotten, the once most powerful man in Gotham reduced to a pathetic little snivelling mess of a man.

_Patience_, he reminds himself.

Ed's eyes roam over his figure, trying to catch the glimpse of a hidden blade ready to strike or the glint of a firearm waiting to be drawn. But Oswald still doesn't move. His hands remain clasped behind his back, his shoulders relaxed under the dark blue fabric of his suit. He looks less like a man being held at gunpoint and more like a bored high-class gentleman enjoying a midnight stroll in his garden.

"Beautiful, aren't they? I was skeptical when Ivy suggested we should plant some, but I've grown quite fond of them."

Ed has to look up over his shoulder to see what he's talking about. White and purple flowers, dozens of them, floating on the calm surface of the decorative pond. The wind sways them this way and that. It pushes the flowers together and makes them dance around each other to create intricate moving patterns, only to disperse them again sending them swirling in opposite directions.

For a short while, Ed loses himself in the sight. So ironic, he muses. Such a peaceful picture, completely at odds with the tension building between the two of them, soon to reach the breaking point. On one thing Oswald is right, though - they _are_ beautiful.

"Lotus flowers," he goes on, not turning around to face Ed just yet. "They have some interesting psychotropic proprieties, or so I've been told."

"I'm not here to talk about your garden, Oswald,"

"Then why are you here, Edward?" There's no mockery in the way Oswald utters his old name, which doesn't stop Ed's features from twisting into a displeased frown. He should have seen it coming. No chance the great Oswald Cobblepot will go down without a fight. It doesn't matter. It just means that he'll have to be a little more persuasive.

Ed adjusts his grip on the gun and presses more firmly against Oswald's back to reinforce his threat. "You know why."

"I'd rather hear it from you."

"I'm here to k--" Ed's voice dies in his throat. All of a sudden, revealing his true intentions becomes a daunting task. He swallows hard, unable to dispel the weight pressing down on his chest, around his neck, preventing him from breathing in. His lips move silently around the last two words.

He can just see it, Oswald raising his eyebrows in mock-surprise as he says: "I beg you pardon?"

He tries again, the effort of ripping out a whole sentence is agonising. "I'm here to kill you."

Ed nearly cringes at the sound of his own voice. At how childish the words come out of his mouth. Little Eddie throwing a tantrum, spewing promises he can't keep. Oh, but he will keep this one.

"If I'm really dying again tonight, at least I want to know the reason."

Ed opens his mouth - not to give him the satisfaction of a proper answer, no, rather to tell him that he knows all too well why he has deserved such a cruel punishment and that it hardly matters if Ed himself is struggling to find the right words to describe it, now. Oswald knows, that will suffice. But before he can say anything, Oswald turns to face him and that's when his resolve starts to falter.

Even in darkness, Ed can tell that there's something different about him. Something he can't put a name to, but that makes his skin crawl nonetheless.

It's all in the eyes. Ed has never seen something like that, not even in the freaks whose help he had enlisted to have the Penguin's kingdom come crashing down on him. Pupils dark and blown wide, like the ones of a nocturnal beast adapting to hunt its prey in the dead of night, out of place on an otherwise familiar face. Have they always been so blue? Was there always so much black in them? Have they always been so deep, deep enough for him to drown in them? Ed suspects he knows the answer and yet blaming it all on some fault of his memory is a hundred times better than accepting the unnerving reality that something has changed in Oswald.

_Haven't you figured it out, yet? You're the prey!_ the voice in his head tells him, cackling with glee. _Run Eddie, run before it's too late._

"Now now, Ed," Oswald clicks his tongue in feigned disappointment. "That's not the face of a killer. And believe me when I tell you I've seen my fair share of those."

Just a few hours before, he had been thrilled at the thought of watching him crawl. So many times he had fantasized about staring at him dead in the eye as he pulled the trigger. Now, as Oswald's piercing gaze settles on him, Ed finds himself stumped.

He looks away, unable to hold his gaze any longer, choosing to focus on a random point in the darkness above his shoulder. Thankfully, he somehow manages to retain the grip on his weapon. He hopes the implicit threat of a bullet in his chest will be enough to dissuade Oswald from trying anything. "Fine. Keep taunting me, we both know you’ll be pleading for your life, just like the last time. Sounds a bit hypocritical, doesn’t it.?"

"Au contraire, my friend. Unlike you, at least I know what I want," Oswald retorts. "I suppose you’re here to avenge that librarian of yours, but I bet you can't even remember what she looked like."

A nervous, low-pitched laugh escapes Ed's lips. "That' what you like to tell yourself, isn't it? She was--"

He blinks, realising he has lost track of what he was about to say. He tries to pick up where his train of thoughts was interrupted. She was...well, he love of his life, that's for sure, but who was she exactly? Her name. What was her name? Panic sets in when he realises he can't even remember her face. The sound of her voice is lost too.

It's like trying to remember a dream after waking up and finding out that the more you think about it, the less you can recall. He can hardly conjure up a single memory of what her body looked like after the fire. Because it was a fire that killed her, right? Oswald had his men burn down her house and then-- No, stupid Ed! She was shot, shot to death and left bleeding out on the curb. Right?

His throat is dry, even swallowing has become a demanding task. He licks his lips, Oswald's impossibly blue eyes following the movement, making his stomach turn. A sudden bout of clarity strikes him in the middle of a cacophony of disconnected thoughts.

"What have you done to me?" What was meant as a snarl comes out as little more than a broken whisper.

"When Odysseus reached the island of the Lotus Eaters he discovered that lotus flowers had a remarkable propriety. Anyone who tasted them was immediately swept away by the intense desire to remain on the island for the rest of their days. Stripped of their will to return home, they had forgotten everything about their wives and children. Forgotten the thing they desired the most."

It doesn't make sense. It's ridiculous, nothing short of absurd. He should be the one talking in riddles. Even more upsetting than Oswald's obscure response, is how the memory of the old myths he studied in school as a child is still more vivid than the reason why he has decided to visit Van Dahl mansion in the first place, now scarcely more than the words “to kill” repeating over and over like a broken record.

"I know the story."

"Then you have your answer," Oswald says. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't do it on purpose."

"No, no, no!" Ed shakes his head, forcefully. The world spins around him, allowing him to believe just for a few seconds that maybe, maybe this is all in his head. All too soon does Oswald's gaze come back into focus, still fixed on him waiting for his next move. "That kind of psychoactive substance works only when ingested. You haven't even touched me!"

"I can't help you with the specific, I'm afraid. I'm not sure of how it works, either," Oswald admits with a small shrug. "Ivy thinks it might have something to do with the drugs she gave me after...well, you know."

Ed feels the garden closing in on him. He isn't a stranger to seeing things that aren't really there - he has a complicated history with hallucinations that do their best to appear as real as the rest of the world around him. Not the least, the vision of Oswald's own reanimated corpse following him wherever he went, wet and cold from his dive into the river, his irritating witticism surviving him even in death.

This is different.

Everything in the garden seems to be moving at once. Not spinning, but crawling and slithering towards him. Persuading himself that the vines and branches he has seen on his way there aren't really reaching to wind around his throat is getting progressively more difficult with each ragged breath he takes. For a single terrifying moment, he thinks he might suffocate. Instinct takes over, body taken over by base instinct and adrenaline. He takes a step back, nearly stumbling upon something he can't quite see. Thankfully, his right arm is still outstretched, finger ready on the trigger.

_You shot him once and it didn't work,_ the voice is back, aggravating as ever, _what makes you think it will work now?_

"I need-- I need to get away from you," he mumbles.

To his astonishment, Oswald makes no move to attack him. He has Ed at his complete mercy, yet all he does is sigh and nod. "Yes, I think that would be best."

It's all wrong. The Penguin was never known for his merciful attitude. He should be laughing at him and delivering a long monologue on how poor Ed never stood a chance against him. And while his common sense, buried deep under layers of confusing memories, screams at him to leave, run as fast as he can until the Oswald and his hellish gardens will be nothing but a bad dream, the question forms spontaneously on his lips. "Don't you want to return the favour? I shot you and dumped into the river because...because you..."

Oswald dismisses it with a wave of his hand. "Don't strain yourself."

His long shadow, cast by the moon shining above them, doesn't repeat the movement. Ed squints behind the fogged-up lenses of his glasses and has the impression that it's staring right back at him with another set of bright blue eyes. The gun drops without a sound, grass swallowing the thud of metal hitting the ground.

Ed runs for his life as the world crumbles around him.

*

The endless nights Ed spends alone in his bedroom are excruciating.

He can't count the times he wakes up in cold sweat, damp sheets tangled around his body and the pounding of his racing heart ringing in his ears. Only in his dreams does she come back to him. Sometimes beautiful and smiling like the day he met her, sometimes bloodied and bruised, her features twisted beyond recognition. She speaks to him, yet he can't remember a single word when he awakes. Her name still escapes him. Some nights he thinks he can grasp the colour of her eyes or the taste of her lips. It never lasts.

The more recurring his nightmares get, the stronger the urge to come back to Van Dahl mansion becomes - if nothing else, to try and understand what is happening to him. At least, that's what Ed tells himself.

Either way, anything would be better than lounging by the bar of the Siren's club, painfully aware of the sideways glances Barbara and her friends keep casting in his direction, no cocktail strong enough to keep him from hearing the hushed remarks whispered behind his back. Pathetic, delusional Ed who has lost his will to fight back.

They do have a point.

The Ed who used to pace back and forth for hours mumbling to himself, consumed by gruesome thoughts of revenge, would have been strong enough to resist the pull. Maybe. Maybe he would have fallen into the trap anyways, just slower, put up more of a fight. The Ed who tosses and turns in his bed, tormented by scraps of distant memories tied together with no rhyme or reason isn't nearly as resilient.

The first time Ed finds himself standing in front of the huge gates of Van Dahl estate, he hates himself for it. So much so that he hides all night among the bushes, watching his old friend from afar. Observes him in silence as he takes a long stroll through the gardens, sometimes monologuing quietly to himself, sometimes exchanging a few words with the girl he calls “Ivy”.

The second time he steps into the gardens, he's dead set on talking to him. In the end he doesn't, of course. The moment his eyes meet Oswald's, he's hardly able to choke out a few empty threats. Dread seizes his guts, forcing him to recoil in a repeat performance of his pathetic first attempt at taking Oswald's life. In equal parts furious and humiliated, Ed flees.

Third time's the charm, as they say. Oswald is wary of him, at first. Ed can see the skeptical look on his face, clear as day, when he tells him he's only there to talk and makes a point to show him that he has come unarmed. It takes an awful lot of convincing before Oswald allows him to stay.

After that, it goes a bit smoother. Oswald even lets him come to stand by his side as they watch the lotus flowers floating lazily in the pond. No one dares to break the silence and it's just as well. It gives Ed time to think. The reason why he should want nothing more than wrap his fingers around Oswald's neck has become hazy enough in his mind to let him enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. The suffocating sensation of tree branches coiling around his body to squeeze the life out of him under Oswald's smug gaze is a vague memory, to the point that Ed starts wondering if he hadn't imagined it after all.

By the fourth night he ends up wandering back to the mansion, pretending that he and Oswald are nothing more than a pair of old friends trying to rebuild their relationship after having been apart for too long has become frighteningly easy. With no cumbersome memories to latch onto, they're free to chat about all sorts of unimportant matters. It's almost like it was before The Incident - that's how he refers to the nebulous event that started it all, now.

The gunshot and the pier are all still there, anchored to the back of his mind, but each time he attempts to shed some light upon them, the details fade and confuse themselves in a myriad of twists and turns. The more Ed forces himself to think about them, the more they feel like black and white scenes from an old movie. Something that happened to someone else. Not him, never him.

Time passes.

Ed's night-time visits to the Van Dahl gardens become a habit. One he's not really proud of; it reminds him too much of the pills and of his appetite for self-destruction disguised as an insane desire to see his former friend just one last time, to hear him speak with that infuriating mocking tone of his before he could allow himself to let him go. Except the Oswald who walks by his side among the trees and rose bushes is flesh and bone. Whenever he accidentally brushes against him, Ed is caught off guard, almost expecting his fingers to just phase through him instead.

The nights Ed spends in his company before crawling back to bed are the ones he sleeps the soundest.

And if it's a flimsy excuse he needs to keep indulging in his new addiction, well, that's easily found. He'd be a liar if he said he didn't find Oswald's new nature in the least fascinating. It would be nothing short of unforgiveable for a man of science and knowledge like him to let such a rare opportunity go to waste.

Five weeks in, he's delighted to find out that there's an explanation for the way his pupils are always blown wide to an unnatural extent. He's been around this new Oswald long enough to notice how he seems to have become extremely sensitive to light. More than once he sees him squint and curse through gritted teeth until he's able to put enough distance between himself and the source of his discomfort.

Not long after the first exciting discovery, another one follows. By Oswald's own admission, Ed learns that ever since waking up in Ivy Pepper's greenhouse he has never felt the need to eat. In fact, the taste and smell of food he used to find mouth-watering have turned nauseating to his heightened senses.

Ed suspects that, were he to persuade him to undergo the little experiment he has been planning for a while, he would find no blood running through his veins. Oswald's complexion is paler than it has ever been, which leads him to wonder what would seep out of the cut if he were to carefully run the sharp edge of a blade on his skin. He has yet to find a convincing scientific explanation as to why Oswald's shadow appears to move of its own accord, but he’s determined not to give up hope until all research paths have been exhausted.

However, for each impossible question he finds a satisfying answer to, another ten remain unanswered. One of them plagues him the most and it has nothing to do with the incredible changes Oswald's body has gone through thanks to the intervention of Ivy's concoction.

"I was surprised when I realised you weren't going to kill me," he blurts out one summer evening. The sun is just starting to set, its rays now dim enough for Oswald to venture outside. They have settled for what has quickly become their favourite spot - a small wooden bench long enough to accommodate the two of them sitting together, shoulder against shoulder, luxuriant vegetation sprawling in every direction. "That first night, I mean. When I broke into the garden and pointed a gun at you."

Oswald lets out a humourless chuckle. "I must admit I thought about it. A lot."

"But?"

"But then I had a change of heart. I decided that letting you live with the knowledge that you couldn't bring yourself to pull the trigger a second time was a fitting enough punishment."

Ed ponders Oswald's words for a while. His gaze settles far beyond the curtain of green leaves above them, further than the pond, towards the setting sun. He has to hold back a bitter smile at the umpteenth proof that Oswald sometimes knows him better than Ed knows himself.

"At the risk of me coming back to finish the job?"

"I had the feeling you wouldn't. Then again, I've never been the best judge of character, haven't I?" He says, the shadow of a smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

Ed is inclined to disagree. You don't survive more than thirty years in the darkest corners of Gotham's seedy underbelly without learning how to read the people around you. It's just one of the many, many reasons Ed had chosen him as his mentor. Who better than the infamous Penguin, the man who had lied, cheated and manipulated his way to the throne of Gotham City, to guide him on his murderous path?

"It was cathartic, in a sense," he goes on. "Letting you go, knowing that you were alive somewhere and probably still hated me as much as you did before the pier. Maybe even more. I felt like...I felt like I deserved it, too. We wouldn't have come to this if I hadn't--"

"Murdered Isabella, yes," Ed finishes for him.

It takes him longer than it should to understand why Oswald is suddenly staring at him, his face the very picture of disbelief.

"You remember," he says.

Wide-eyed and equally incredulous, Ed can only nod.

No need to struggle against the thick fog swallowing his thoughts, not anymore. All the memories he had chased in vain for weeks until he had been overcome by sheer exhaustion are there at their place, as if they had never left. The wine shop, his own hands shaking as Isabella guides them to wrap around her neck, the flowers he left on the train tracks to honour her memory, Oswald in tears tied to the hood of Isabella's wrecked car, the blast of a gun being fired, Oswald's blood drawing red streaks in the dark waters of the pier. Distant but clear, clearer than they've been in a very long time.

"Maybe I've been exposed to you long enough to develop some sort of immunity to your…influence?" He tries.

"No. There must be something else you're forgetting," Oswald decides, giving voice to what Ed has already began to suspect. "If I asked you about the single thing you desire the most, what would you answer?"

It's easier said than done. Or better, easier thought than said. Ed is able to conjure a fairly clear picture in his mind. He knows it's something he would have found utterly ridiculous until not too long ago, and that it has to do with Oswald and a particular burning need he has fought too hard to repress. But how to put into words?

"I want--" he struggles, then huffs in frustration when his voice can't be persuaded to step up to the task. "I'm not sure."

"Perhaps it's better if you go, now." Oswald makes to stand up, but Ed is quicker. His fingers clutch the cuff of his dress shirt, pulling him back down on the bench.

"Kiss me," he rasps. "Please, before I forget."

If Oswald looked surprised before, now he's utterly bewildered. He's the most human he's ever looked in weeks, since the gunshot and the river and whatever strange medicine Ivy has given him to bring him back from the dead. Not quite the same man he was before but damn close enough. He blinks twice, as if unable to wrap his heard around the absurdity of Ed's request.

Ed's hands are hitching, struggling to fight off the urge to reach out and grab a handful of Oswald's overly expensive clothes, pull him in until there's no space left between them. He takes in a deep breath, inhaling a sickeningly sweet scent. It's hard to tell if it comes from the purple lotus pinned to the lapel of his suit jacket or from Oswald himself. But it's not enough to dissuade him from venturing further.

Oswald is still looking at him with a dazed expression painted on his face when Ed leans in, tentatively brushing his own lips against his. He shivers at the touch. They're ice-cold, yet strangely inviting. _The lips of a dead man_, the wicked voice at the back of his head whispers, but it is silenced as soon as Oswald is shaken off his stupor and moves to reciprocate.

Oswald kisses him with deliberate slowness, as if he was scared he might hurt him or, even worse, he might scare him away. It makes Ed's heart ache. To help him dispel any doubt, Ed tangles his fingers in his hair, showing him how much he wants it.

The colours are already starting to fade from the picture of him and Oswald and their long nights in the garden. It's a new kind of fear, different from anything he has experienced before. The fear that comes from losing something he didn't even know he desired until the very moment he got it.

They break apart, Ed already out of breath, Oswald with his lips parted as if he was about to say something and yet didn't quite know how. Ed is well acquainted with the feeling.

"Ed, I..."

"Please," he repeats, not even sure of what he's asking.

Oswald doesn't hesitate, this time, and he's oh so grateful for it. He claims Ed's mouth in a hungry, open-mouthed kiss that leaves him wrapping his arms around his waist in an urgent attempt at pulling him closer still, no matter if their chests are already pressed tightly together. Such desperation, such intense, unabashed need. Ed lets his eyelids flutter shut and just _feel_.

He's tangentially aware of Oswald murmuring an apology against his lips, too low for him to hear the exact words. Like his lips, his hand is cold when it rises to caress Ed's cheek with unexpected sweetness. A heavy lump forms in his throat as he slowly comes to realise that in a matter of minutes he will have forgotten all about this. It's inevitable. No antidote, no way to counter the effects. Just a slow, maddening descent into oblivion.

With what rationality he has left, he scrambles to find something to say. Because he really should say something now, before it’s too late. It might be his last chance. But then Oswald is kissing him again and everything else ceases to have any importance.

As long as Oswald is touching him and kissing him like his life depends on it, Ed can pretend that it will last forever.


End file.
